As this book is a reprinting of Harry Frankfurt's influential work, originally published in 1970, we should first deal with what is new in it. In her foreword to this new Princeton edition Rebecca Goldstein echoes Frankfurt's own contention that Descartes, more so than other philosopher's, has fallen into contempt by way of familiarity. She points out that Frankfurt engages in a refreshing act of defamiliarization throughout this close reading of the Meditations and goes on to touch on the theme of a certain forgetting bred from this familiarity that has concealed a denser 'antiphonal chorus in which those eponymous demons dreamers and madmen chime in...' [p.xi]. Goldstein commends Frankfurt's 'excavation' [p. xi] of the various arguments that emerge out of this chorus and describes the work as being like the other image in a gestalt frame, contending that once you '... see the complexity contained in the seemingly simple conversational mode of the First Meditation...' [p.xi] you can never again return to not seeing it. This reprinting is well past due as this forgetting has once again taken a firm hold and we need to look once more at the altered image, or is it hear once more the 'antiphonal chorus' of voices, in order to 'excavate' Descartes' Meditations from 'beneath the wheel' [p.ix] of our familiarity. It is somewhat unfortunate, however, that in her forward to a book which exhibits as much clarity as this one Goldstein could not '... make use of it in [her] own writing' [p.xi]. For example, there is little need for Goldstein to laud the 'moral virtue of intellectual generosity' [p.xii] that Frankfurt showed in his appraisal of her own creative writing as his 'intellectual virtues' [p.xii] are more than able to stand alone. What is more this superfluous inverse ad hominem argument leads her into a sticky spot wherein she contends, rightly, that Frankfurt has been generous by sharing his insights on Descartes with his readership but, wrongly, that Frankfurt's reading of Descartes also '... demonstrates that... generosity has a vital role to play' [p.xii].

As with any good defense, Frankfurt's entails a much closer and more exacting reading than that carried out by many of Descartes' detractors which is in many ways far less generous to Descartes [see for example Gilbert Ryle on the purportedly all-embracing dogmatic acceptance of Cartesian dualism]. Though Frankfurt does describe Descartes' reasoning as '... a lovelier and more compelling paradigm of philosophical thinking than any [he] had ever encountered' [p.xiv], and acknowledges from the outset that his intention is to argue that '... the common charge against [Descartes] of circular reasoning, however plausible and apparently easy to sustain it may be, is wrong' [p.xiv] he does not furnish his readers with an over generous assessment of this 'paragon of clear and robust thinking' [p.xiv] but, rather, pays homage to Descartes by listening carefully to every voice that emerges in the First Meditation. He does this in order to moderate in the cacophonic debate over how Descartes' responded to the '... crisis generated by Galileo's confrontation with the then-current Roman Catholic orthodoxy' [p.xv] and, ultimately, to annunciate on how these separate voices were orchestrated in Descartes' Meditations in a way that could '... neatly avoid the point of contention between them and make it unnecessary for him to deny the autonomy either of science or of revelation' [p.254].

The main body of this work deals '... only with those parts of the Meditations...' that Frankfurt deems '... indispensable to understanding Descartes's attempt to provide a justification of reason' [p.xvii]. This close reading provides a counterpoint to the common and all too easy criticisms of a general set of beliefs that falls under the overly broad heading "Cartesianism". Frankfurt highlights the dialogical nature of Descartes' Meditations in which more than one voice participates and the fact that though the Meditations are written in an autobiographical mode they were published anonymously and depend on the establishment of an everyman character with whom the reader shares the trait of considering him or her self sufficiently supplied with reason. 'While Descartes writes in the first person the identity he adopts is not quite his own' [p.5], as the Meditations progress Descartes moves the reader, the everyman, from the perspective of a beginning philosopher, through the perspectives of a dreamer [pp.43-50], a madman [pp.51-55], and someone enthralled by a demon [pp.56-67, 90-92], in order to establish the conditions of reason according to which the everyman can identify itself as a fundamentally rational thinking being. To do this Descartes, Frankfurt contends, must maintain '... scrupulous respect for the philosophical naïveté of his intended reader...' and '... must not require either the use or the understanding of materials that the text has not already provided...' [p.8]. In line with this Cartesian imperative Frankfurt provides the reader with a full copy of Descartes' First Meditation which serves both as a reference and, more significantly, as a subtle remonstration that we should always return to the text itself and not continue on in our easy assumptions about good old Descartes.

The First Meditation, as Frankfurt understands it, is intended to wreck '... the thoughtless confidence in sense perception with which common sense is generally content' [p.19]. It is not only directed to 'the philosophical novice' [p. 19] but also spoken on his behalf [p.20]. This defamiliarizing proposal, then, is put in a familiar voice. It is, perhaps, because of this admixture of the unfamiliar with the familiar that Descartes' thought has had such wide acceptance yet, ironically, simultaneously aroused such suspicion. What Frankfurt points out has been overlooked is the insistent pushing that Descartes undertakes by engaging this philosophically naïve voice in conversation with progressively more unfamiliar interlocutors and, on each occasion, bringing both into one. This is, Frankfurt holds, an intentionally undertaken effort to 'reduce common sense to absurdity' [p.21] rather than a flaw in Descartes' core argument, as has so often been asserted. This bringing together, or orchestration, of the familiar with the unfamiliar is only disruptive if we, the readers, are committed to a correspondence theory of truth but, Frankfurt points out, it is exactly this theory that Descartes strives to test and revise by way of what can more aptly be called 'a coherence theory of truth' [p.36]. This break with a structure of correspondence that, put simply, equates the familiar with the "true" and the unfamiliar with the "false" is itself bracketed out in this composition of voices wherein the essential standard is coherence, all that matters according to Frankfurt's assessment of this alternative standard, is that these things can be said together, that they do not speak against each other.

Frankfurt goes on to cleverly interpret Descartes' Meditations in terms of this same coherence theory, thereby allowing for a solution to what, in terms of a correspondence theory, seems to amount to 'a crippling dilemma' [p.39]. The question of generosity emerges again here, though, and a note of caution must be rung for the reader who might take this book as an altogether sound guide to Descartes' work. While Frankfurt is in no way over generous to Descartes in this reading which reveals a more harmonious relationship between the parts of the Meditations that are to do with the 'justification of reason', he may be a little under generous in his estimation of Descartes' detractors. For example when he dismisses 'a surprisingly common misunderstanding' [p.45] of Descartes' argument against trusting in the senses, the "misunderstanding" that holds that all sense data should be dismissed from our reckoning of certainty on the grounds that some sensory experiences have misled us in the past, Frankfurt claims that a reading that considers all of the argument against trust in the senses rather than only 'the gambit with which it opens' [p.46] will find that '[Descartes'] examination is not so thin in texture' [p.46] as this. The discussion which follows this criticism entails a move that goes quite a long way toward evening out the distinctions between the sensible man and the reasonable man, drawn by Descartes, thereby making his Meditations read as a more coherent argument. While Frankfurt's novel reading should be applauded for bringing a more harmonious ring to the parts of Descartes' Meditations it overlooks a much more substantial 'gambit with which it opens' being the pattern laid down for the Meditations in Descartes' earlier work The Discourse on Method. In Part 1 of that work Descartes declared that his path of thought should take him from the simplest of questions to the most complex, being essentially a path of induction from the specific to the general, and in Part 4 of that same work he clearly and distinctly contended that 'I ought to reject as absolutely false all opinions in regard to which I could suppose the least ground for doubt'. In the case of opinions gained from the senses the experience of having been misled in the past acts as just such a specific 'ground for doubt' regardless of how 'thin in texture' and therefore must, in terms of Descartes' overall scheme, be taken as evidence that the senses in general are not to be trusted. This example indicates a problem of selectivity in the scope of Frankfurt's book and while it can be argued that Frankfurt makes it clear in the title that he is dealing specifically with Descartes' Meditations it must also be taken into account that where it serves to further his thesis he draws on a wide range of Descartes' writing, including The Method, with quite some aplomb [p.52].

It should be noted by prospective readers that the novelty involved in Frankfurt's analysis requires that they already be quite familiar with Descartes' work because 'a beginning philosopher' might end up with a somewhat stilted view of it if they rely on this defamiliarizing reading as a guide, it is always safe to say that one should know the form before one breaks the form. All told, however, this is a nuanced and thought provoking work that is pitched perfectly at a philosophically sophisticated audience. It is particularly valuable for those interested in lesser known motifs from Descartes' Meditations such as his ongoing interrogation of the role of the imagination [see pp.75-83 and pp.79-80]. Frankfurt's novel reading gains much by its reintroduction, by way of re-printing, at a historical juncture when the competing claims of religion versus science have once again gathered many vociferous, and some violent, adherents on each side. In this context Frankfurt's work can be seen as even more current and significant now than when it was originally published, if there was ever a time for a Defense of Reason against the clamor raised by Demons, Dreamers and Madmen then that time is now.

Miles Kennedy recently completed his PhD thesis on Being-within: the foundations of a Bachelardian 'concrete metaphysics' at the National university of Ireland Galway. He has taught philosophy for NUIG and Dublin City University and is currently working on a book.

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